The Knitting Process

April Baby Blanket

2008-04-08T22:54:00.003-04:00

Posting here will continue to be intermittent at best. Blogging just isn't a priority right now, and our home computer is mostly being used by my husband for work purposes. But I am reading a lot of blogs, and keeping up (somewhat) with Ravelry. Although picture posting there has been minimal lately too.

I've finished several projects since I last posted, most notably a sweater for my husband and a pair of mittens. But I don't have pictures of those yet. What I do have a picture of is a baby blanket that I made for a new cousin. It's the Mystery Blanket from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. I modified it somewhat to elimiate the yarn-over holes and add colorful stripes.

I'm not thrilled with the way the colors came out (I think it's too much blue, even though it is a baby boy), but I sent it off anyway. This was a tough project. My tastes tend to be pretty traditional, but the mother owns a Marimekko shop. So I tried to pick bright colors and a pattern that is both modern and traditional.

I hope they like it!

Celtic Baby Blanket

2007-09-10T19:05:00.001-04:00

I finished (and gifted) my Celtic Baby Blanket back in July, but I never posted the finished product. To refresh your memory, it's a totally reversible baby blanket that I made out of Knitpicks Swish Superwash in color Dublin. Here it is!

I worked the blanket out from the center in a seed stitch-like pattern, then added the border to the live stitches.

Here's a close-up of the mitered corner. It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

It looks great on my rocking chair too! I want one!

And finally, proof that it really is reversible, cables and all.

This blanket took 15 balls of yarn and way too much time to knit, but I'm really happy with the result. The hardest part of the project was grafting the border stitches together at the end. I think I finally learned how to graft, beyond just following the directions for stockinette stitch grafting.

I Got My Socks!

2007-08-17T21:03:00.000-04:00

I had a great Sockapalooza pal. She is Amy! I told her that I was going on vacation right after the send-out date, so she didn't need to rush to get my socks done. So what did she do? She sent them out a day early so that they would get here just before I left on vacation. In fact, they arrived on Saturday August 4, a few hours before we left the house. I didn't have time to take pictures before we left, but we're now back so I may be posting again.

She had them packaged nicely, and all wrapped up with a tag, a card, and some extra yarn.

However, I was in such a rush to see the socks that I took it all apart without taking a picture. I especially like the tag with the "pea" yarn.

When I got to the socks, I found that she had picked great yarn in a great color, a great pattern, and had done a great job knitting them. They are Cookie A. 's Twisted Flowers socks made out of Brown Sheep Wildfoote in Mums. It's definitely my kind of color, and they fit perfectly.

What Amy didn't know is that I wear clogs most of the year. So the beautiful patterning on the heel flap will be visible.

I tried to take pictures of these socks on my feet, but my pictures don't do them justice. Here's the best of my attempts:

Thanks Amy! You did a great job!

Husband Sweater Planning

2007-08-03T18:38:00.000-04:00

I've started the design process for my husband's sweater. I have the yarn (peer gynt color 2543- light brown) and I have a basic idea of what kind of sweater I'm making (something cabled). But I've been having a really hard time picking cable patterns. I've been looking at just about every sweater I can find (Ravelry has been great for this- it's just as good, and just as much of a time-suck as everyone says it is) and nothing really struck me. Then, today, I was at our local book store. They have a much better knitting book selection than you might expect- better than our LYS. While I was browsing, I saw Viking Patterns For Knitting by Elsebeth Lavold. Wow. I'm not sure why I wasn't interested in this book when it first came out, but it was exactly what I was looking for. It has lots of beautiful cables that will be perfect for this sweater. The Lillbjars border and braided Lillbjars border are very likely to end up in the final sweater.

Both of these cables (like most of the cables in the book) are open/close loop designs. But the way the loops are opened and closed is different from how I've done it in the past. Both Alice Starmore and Girl From Auntie use one method, and this book uses another. What's interesting, is that I think both methods are useful. But they each serve a different purpose. Compare a cable knit using the first method to a cable knit using this new method. The first method produces a much more rounded shape, while the new method produces a more pointed loop.

In some patterns from the Viking Patterns for Knitting book, I really like the pointed loop that is produced by Lavold's increase/decrease method. In others, I think the old method would look better. In some cases, I think a combination of the two methods might look best (open the loops in one way, close them in another). I'm off to knit these cables a couple of different ways to see how I think they'll look best.

Sockapalooza DONE!

2007-08-02T23:00:00.001-04:00

I've finished my sockapalooza socks, and am now done with deadline knitting! Yes, that means that the baby blanket is done too. But that story will have to wait for another time.

Here are the sockapalooza socks:

That's my hand in the sock, not a deformed foot. My pal's feet are smaller than mine, and I didn't want to risk ruining the socks by putting them on. They aren't as small as they look in the picture, though. The stitch pattern is very stretchy. I hope she likes them!

Here are the details:

Yarn: Trekking Pro Natura, 75% superwash wool, 25% bamboo

Needles: Size 1 Inox double points

Pattern: Basic toe-up gusset socks with a stitch pattern added. I used a mock-cable pattern that I found in Barbara Walker.

These socks are now on their way to their new home, and I'm on to making a sweater for my husband (his first hand-knit sweater). I'll be designing for a while, but I'll be back eventually.

Distractions

2007-07-07T13:01:00.000-04:00

I'm still plugging away on the baby blanket. I'm getting close (last side of the edging!), but the baby is coming soon- due on Monday, and not coming any later than Tuesday. So I really need to finish it up. But I've been distracted by other ideas.

First, I've started my Sockapalooza socks. I've never participated in Sockapalooza before, and didn't think I ever would. I signed up on a whim, so now I'm knitting socks.

My foot is bigger than my pal's foot, so these are a bit tight on me. I hope she likes them- she wanted blue and/or green jewel tones (check!), cables (check!-kind of-they are actually mock cables), and preferably somewhat suitable for warm-weather wear (not really). The yarn I'm using is the Trekking that has some bamboo in it. It's mostly wool, but the bamboo does make it slightly more suitable for warmer weather. And since I don't have an LYS where I can check out all sorts of different sock yarns, it was hard to figure out what warm-weather yarn might work. The pattern is just a basic toe-up sock with a mock cable that I pulled out of Barbara Walker. I hope I finish them in time!

My other distraction is in the quilting realm. A while back, Carrie linked to this article, suggesting that those spirals would make a great quilt. As soon as I read her post, I knew I had to try it. I used powerpoint to draw two same-sized octagons, and then offset them as the article suggested. I made lots of copies of these offset octagons, and then cut out the shapes. I was surprised to see how many ways they can be put together. Right now I seem to be obcessed with finding more ways to arrange them. Here's what I've come up with so far. I need to print out more pages of octagons so I can cut out more pieces!

I think that any of these arrangements (enlarged, of course) would make a great quilt. Maybe someday I'll make one of them. For now, I'm just arranging little pieces of paper.

Celtic Baby Blanket: Version 2

2007-05-09T19:30:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I posted, but some of you may remember that I was working on a baby blanket for my not-yet-born niece or nephew. The requirements for this project were that the blanket have some sort of celtic feel, and that it be reversible. My husband also really wanted me to use this color (not my favorite). The first version (see last post) fit these requirements, but I hated knitting it, and I wasn't happy with how the joins between the various pieces were looking. So I cast on for version 2. Like version 1, the center panel of this blanket is double seed stitch, and the border has reversible cables. Unlike version 1, the center panel of this blanket was knit from the center out, and the border is being attached to the live stitches of the center panel. Also unlike version 1, I actually like knitting the reversible cables I designed for the border. Having two different types of cables breaks up some of the monotony, and the cables I chose cross less often. This means less horizontal compression (so less stitches) and also means that I have a few more "easy" rows. Taken together, that means that this version is faster to knit. The border is still taking me forever, but at least the time spent isn't painful. And I even got the cables to turn the corner!

Here's one side of the blanket:

And here's the other side of the border:

I think it will end up being about 3 feet x 3 feet.

To answer a question from the comments:

Laurie asked:
How's the Swish for the blanket? Have you used it before? I need to start on a baby blanket very soon and am considering this yarn.

I've used a few superwash wool yarns now, and I can't say that I like any of them very much. They all feel too much like acrylic to me, and I'm never happy with how the finished fabric looks after washing. Which is why I decided to give the Swish a try. The yarn is very soft, which I think is a good thing for a baby blanket. It also has that characteristic superwash squeaky feel to it. But I'm also not sure how it is going to hold up to wear and washing. I've been joining new balls of yarn by spit splicing. I expected this to be a bit difficult since it is superwash yarn, but it wasn't any harder than joining any other wool yarn I've used. Which makes me a bit nervous about washing it. I hand-washed my swatch, and it came out fine. I'll put my swatch through the washing machine to test it out before I wash the whole blanket that way. I'll let you know what I find out!

Baby blanket

2007-04-18T16:07:00.000-04:00

Last summer, my husbands brother (S) and sister-in-law (A) took a trip to Scotland and Ireland. S had been saying that he would be willing to have children after he had taken a trip to the British Isles. So A's parents took them on the trip, in the hopes that they might get grandchildren.

It looks like their plan worked, because S and A's first child will be born in June (gender unknown). That means that I have some knitting to do. I started the tradition of knitting blankets for baby relatives, so S and A's baby will be getting a blanket too.

Because of the history of their decision to have children, I decided that the blanket should have a Celtic feel to it. I also like baby blankets that are reversible.

The first iteration of the blanket is shown below:

I bought some Swish Superwash from Knitpicks in color Dublin (gender-neutral, and the parents really like green).

I took the border from the Arwen sweater (reversible cable) and made it wider. I knit attached I-cord on one side, and a selvedge that would make it easy to pick up stitches on the other side. When the strip was 2 feet long, I picked up stitches and knit the border on both sides, continuing the I-cord up the sides. I put a double seed stitch pattern in the middle. This makes the blanket totally reversible. I am about 25% done with the blanket, but I don't like it. It just looks a bit too messy. I also HATE knitting that border pattern. It's almost constant cabling, and the yarn is on the splitty side, especially since I am knitting it at a fairly tight gauge.

I haven't ripped it out yet, but I have started version 2. Version 2 is worked from the center out, increasing at the four corners of a square. I'll then knit a border on last. I'm trying out some other border ideas (the current idea I'm working on is a reversible honeycomb cable pattern) but I don't have anything worked out yet.

In other news, I've been doing a lot of home improvement projects lately. For some reason, I got the idea that I could do some basic plumbing. I'm really not sure what gave me this idea, since the last time I tried to mess with pipes I was pretty unsuccessful (and ended up having to call a plumber). But so far I've been successful. I've replaced the kitchen faucet and I'm half way through installing a reverse osmosis water purification system. The next step in the reverse osmosis installation involves drilling a hole in a pipe. I'm a bit nervous about that one. Hopefully it goes well!

Can you guess that I've been spending a lot less time on work lately? I've been knitting AND working on the house!

New Sweaters!

2007-04-14T16:37:00.000-04:00

I finally have pictures of my Hand-to-Hand Aran and my red sweater!

Here's the Hand-to-Hand Aran:

And here's the red sweater:

I think these might be the first two sweaters I have knit since starting this blog. I tend to knit sweaters in pairs, and I often finish a pair of sweaters in the early spring. I'm not quite sure what that means, but there you have it.

The Hand-to-Hand Aran fits well, and is the type of sweater I will wear a lot. It is a very "me" kind of sweater. I think I might add a couple more inches to the length of the sweater, because I am constantly pulling it down. But that's easy to do since the body was knit from the top down.

I'm not sure if I like the red sweater or not. If I made it again, I think I would make it a bit narrower. And the V-neck is a lot lower than what I usually wear. I think my main problem with it is that I feel fat when I'm wearing it. I wore it to work yesterday, but I'm not sure how many times I will actually wear it in the future. Time will tell.

Here's the details:

Hand-to-Hand:
Worsted weight coned yarn from WEBS, knit on size 8 needles. I used just a bit over a pound of yarn.
This was based on Elizabeth Zimmerman's Hand-to-Hand Aran sweater. I took her general idea, and made some modifications:
1. I knit the sleeves in the round instead of knitting them flat and seaming.
2. I made the sleeves much narrower than what the pattern called for. This gave me less stitches to use for yoke patterning, but made the sweater fit the way I wanted it to.
3. I added waist shaping.
I was amazed by how fast this sweater knit up. Plain stockinette in the round zips right by!

Red Sweater:
Knit with Jaeger Merino and size 6 needles. I love this yarn. It was a pleasure to knit with, and I think that it will hold up well.
The stitch pattern is somewhere back in my archives, but comes from one of Barbara Walker's books. I made up the pattern as I went along, and ended up surprised by how well it came together.
I love this yarn. It was a pleasure to knit with, and I think that it will hold up well.

Snip!

2007-04-12T21:36:00.000-04:00

I finished knitting my red sweater, and it fits better than I expected it to, but the sleeves were too long. The stitch pattern has stitches changing positions on every row, so I wasn't sure how it would work to cut off the extra fabric. However, I didn't want to reknit the sleeves so I gave it a try. I snipped one stitch near, but not at, the end of a row and carefully unpicked and picked up stitches.

I then bound off the stitches on the needles.

It doesn't look perfect (parts of the bind-off are too loose), and I may redo the bind-off, but I actually like seeing the bound off edge on the right side. I think it makes a nice border for the pattern. And the sleeves are now the right length!

I now have two finished sweaters to take pictures of (the Hand-to-Hand Aran is also finished). Hopefully that will happen soon, but no promises.

Fuzzy Feet and North Country Culture

2007-03-26T20:14:00.000-04:00

There's a project I never blogged about this winter because I finished it in one day. I finally made a pair of Fuzzy Feet from Knitty.

I have a really nice warm pair of slippers, so I never thought to make these, but they are perfect for North Country winters. There really isn't anywhere to go out to here, so we end up spending a lot of time at friends' houses. Winters are very cold and snowy, so we are always wearing boots, and our boots are always covered with snow and sand/salt. So as soon as we get to someone's house, we take off our shoes. But people here don't heat their houses very much (the average indoor temp here is probably somewhere around 55 degrees F, and basements stay around 35-45 degrees, so floors are cold). So most people bring slippers with them when they go to someone's house. Fuzzy Feet are perfect because I can stick them in my jacket pockets or in my purse, and don't need to carry a separate bag for them. These were made exactly according to the pattern, out of Brown Sheep worsted weight wool/mohair. I bought the yarn at my "LYS*", because somehow I didn't have anything in the stash that would work.

* My "LYS" is actually a pretty small craft store, that sells everything from rubber stamps to a very small selection of quilting supplies, but they do have a whole aisle of yarn. That yarn is not organized in any particular way, and you really need to dig around, but if you look hard enough I think you could usually find at least two matching skeins of just about anything they sell. It will work for small purchases of basic wool, but I think the internet is still my main yarn store.

Needle Holder

2007-03-07T17:32:00.000-05:00

I was so impressed by Stephanie's craft room organization, that I decided to do some work on mine. I can now vacuum in there! Sadly, that's an improvement. I still need some better storage, but I did manage to take care of one small problem: my circular needles. I copied Stephanie's idea of sewing a walll-hung organization system. Here's the result:

I made the pockets a bit too deep, so my smaller needles fall all the way in. But at least I know where to look for them, and I won't need to check too many needles with my needle sizer before starting a project. It's a huge improvement over the (ripped) ziplock bag I had been using. I also added in some pockets at the top for notions. This way I have some hope of finding a tape measure or stitch holder if I need it.

An added bonus is that it covers some of the mint green of the walls (it's actually a worse color than this picture makes out- think true mint green). This is one of the 5 colors of green that the previous owners painted inside the house. Sadly, it isn't the worst shade of green that they used, so we haven't gotten around to painting over it yet.

I still need to get a dowel rod and some clear fishing line to hang this properly. As a temporary fix, I used a curtain rod that the previous owners left and some scraps of yarn. Hopefully I'll get to it this weekend.

Sweater Progress

2007-03-07T17:16:00.000-05:00

I haven't had lots of time to knit, but I've been knitting steadily. And I've made some progress!

I'm really close to finishing my red sweater.

I'm working on the raglan decreases for the second sleeve. I think I have a block against finishing this sweater. First, I'm a bit concerned that it is coming out just a little bigger than I would have liked. Second, I think there might be a problem with the raglan shaping on the back. I'm not really sure I want to find out whether these problems exist or not.

So instead of doing the last little bit of that sleeve, I've been working on my Hand-to-Hand Aran. I'm really close (one more repeat of the big cable!) to finishing the sleeves/yoke of this sweater. Just to orient you a little bit, the neck opening is at the top center of the picture, and the sleeves are bent at approximately the elbow. I'll knit the body of the sweater by picking up stitches along the bottom edge (along the part that has the honeycomb repeat).

Knitting these cables with the closed ring patterns was challenging at first. I was able to close the rings just fine, but when I tried to open a ring, I got big gaping holes. You can see an example of this near the bottom of this picture.

I finally figured out what the directions were saying a few repeats in. You can see the difference in the ring opening near the top of this picture. I decided not to rip anything out. If the holes are still there after washing (this yarn still has its spinning oil, so some holes might appear smaller after washing) then I'll sew them up from the inside.

As soon as I finish the last bit of the yoke I'm going to give it a wash. I can't wait to see how it looks!

Quilting

2007-02-07T21:27:00.000-05:00

I haven't made much knitting progress, but that's because most of my free time has been spent quilting. I haven't done much quilting before (just a couple of small projects), but I have a big project planned.

When my Grandfather died, he left a lot of collections. It was very easy to find family members who wanted most of these collections. However, some of them were a bit more challenging to find homes for. One of the more difficult collections was his ties. He had somewhere around 300 ties. Some of them are in better condition than others, and most of them are very out of style. There are wide ties and skinny ties, silk ties and wool ties. There are ties that are solids, stripes, paisleys, plaid, and polka-dots. They are red, brown, blue, yellow, purple.... Well, you get the idea. Anyway, his ties are now at my parents' house waiting for me to make a quilt out of them.

However, there's the small problem that I don't have a lot of quilting experience. And from what I understand, quilting with ties isn't the easiest thing. So I decided to start practicing. I bought some fabric at a local store (meaning I chose from about 15 different fabrics) and started piecing. Here's what I have so far:

I realized as I was editing the picture that the block on the right should be turned 90 degrees to the right. But the pattern will start to make more sense when I have more blocks done. The pattern is called "Kaleidoscope". Each block measures 6" square, so it's going to take a lot of blocks to make anything decent sized. But I think that this is going to be a very small quilt that I will probably hang on a wall somewhere. I want to try out a few different patterns, and get some practice sewing on borders, backing it, quilting, etc. so a series of smaller quilts will probably be more useful than one big one.

I'm doing all of the sewing by hand. I have a sewing machine, and I know how to use it, but I've been sewing by hand since I was a small child, and I actually like doing it. So far I'm pretty happy with how the corners are lining up, and my stitches seem to be small enough. When I start noticing a significant change in the quality of my work, I'll start a new project. And hopefully I'll keep fitting in a few rows of knitting here and there!

3 Sweaters in Progress

2007-01-26T18:39:00.000-05:00

I've been working on some of these sweaters longer than others, but I have high hopes for all of them. They are all my own designs, so they might work out, or they might not.

1. A red sweater that I started a long time ago. The stitch pattern is Wheat Ear Rib from Barbara Walker's treasuries (I'm not sure which one).

I'm getting pretty close on this one. I'm part way through the second sleeve, so hopefully I'll get to wear it this winter.

2. This is the beginning of an Elizabeth Zimmerman Hand-to-Hand Aran sweater. The idea is to knit from one cuff to the other, and then pick up stitches to knit the body. But I think that it would bother me to have one sleeve knit from cuff to body and the other sleeve knit from the body to the cuff. So I'm going to knit both sleeves from the cuff to the middle of the sweater, then graft them together. It's a lot of grafting in multiple cable patterns, but I think it will work out. And the sweater will be symmetrical. Then I'll pick up stitches and knit the body. Here's what I have so far on the first sleeve:

I'd like to say that this sleeve will be done soon, but I have yet to knit more than 3 rows of this in a sitting. So it could be a long-term project. The pattern for the big cable can be found here. The smaller cable is just one 8-stitch repeat of a honeycomb cable. This is the yarn - my color is arctic fox, which seems to be sold out. This yarn still has spinning oil in it, so it will fluff up more when it is washed.

3. This is just the very beginnings of a sweater. Now that I'm trying to look professional when I go to work, I've been wearing more jackets than sweaters. I've measured my favorite jacket very carefully, and I'm knitting this to be the exact same size and shape. We'll see how it works. Accurate shaping has never been my strong point. That's why I like knitting hats and mittens. If they don't work, it isn't that big a deal to rip them out. To make this even trickier, I'm using unspun icelandic yarn for this project. You can probably guess how I know that it doesn't rip out well.

For this project, I wanted to use a two-color stitch pattern that would not really look like knitting. After looking through my many, many stitch pattern books, I didn't find anything that I really liked. But the fancy herringbone pattern in one of Barbara Walker's Treasuries of Knitting Patterns was close to what I was looking for. So I decided to see how I might adapt that pattern for two colors. I tried about 10 different variations of the pattern:

The one I settled on is the 5th band down from the top. It is the fancy herringbone pattern with the slipped stitches worked in the constrasting yarn. Here's how it looks in the unspun icelandic:

This picture is pretty blurry, but none of the others seemed to show what the pattern really looks like. All the shaping in pattern that this pattern requires takes a lot of attention. So I haven't been working on it much lately. But since it is the one that I am the most likely to wear to work, it should probably be higher on the priority list.

New Mittens!

2007-01-21T14:26:00.000-05:00

As my first semester teaching ended, I started knitting again. It was a really tough semester, and I'm really glad it is over. Second semester starts tomorrow, and I'm hoping it will be a lot better. I now know what kind of background these students have, and how much they are willing to work. That's a good start to making this semester go more smoothly.

I haven't been knitting much, and the time I have spent knitting has been spread across several projects. It seems like every time I sit down to knit, I want to start something new. However, we spent a week with my husband's family, and I only brought a few projects with me. And I actually managed to finish something!

I made the double-knit hat last winter, but I didn't have any mittens that really went with it. So I didn't wear the hat much. I had some yarn left over from the hat (less than 50g each of the red Heilo and grey Peer Gynt), and I thought there might be enough for a pair of mittens. I knit both mittens at once, from opposite ends of the balls of yarn. After ripping and reknitting the tops and thumbs a few times, I finally came up with a pattern I had enough yarn for. In the end, I had about 4 inches of red yarn left. Just enough to weave in the ends!

I would have liked the thumb to be a little more similar to the rest of the mittens, but there wasn't enough red yarn to make that happen. However, I like the mittens, and I'm now wearing the hat/mittens combo often. Success!

(no, there isn't a pattern for either the hat or mittens written up. I might write one later, but it's looking unlikely.)

Proof That I Use My Handknits

2006-11-12T15:50:00.000-05:00

36 stitch mittens from Knitting Without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmerman, made about 10-15 years ago from 100% wool mystery yarn, shown after a morning of raking and bagging leaves in the rain.

The worst sweater ever

2006-10-01T20:57:00.000-04:00

I haven't been knitting. Instead, I've just been trying to get by day to day. I get to work around 8:00 am, and post my lecture notes for the next day around 11:00 pm. That doesn't leave a lot of time for knitting (or anything else). So I thought I might amuse you with a past knitting mishap.

When I was answering Grunperina's meme, I mentioned the first sweater I ever made. For those of you who may not realize how bad that sweater could have been, here's a picture. Keep in mind that it was the early 90's.

1. I started this sweater in 1990. I was 13 years old at the time, and not an experienced knitter.
2. The sweater was from a leaflet of fashion patterns. I am not (and was certainly not then) interested in fashion patterns.
3. I knit it from 100% acrylic yarn that consisted of 4 plies that were untwisted. One of those plies was a white boucle, the other three each consisted of one strand of white and one strand of black twisted together. This is BAD YARN. In fact, there is NOTHING good about it. This yarn was especially bad for an inexperienced knitter.
4. I altered the pattern. It was meant to be knit in garter stitch from one cuff to the other, but I knit it in stockinette instead. I thought it would end up looking better.
5. I knit the wrong size of the pattern or knit to the wrong gauge, and then tried to fix the problem after it was knit by adding in side panels. While this allowed me to get the thing on, it also made it too wide. This sweater is HUGE, but the sleeves are a very odd length.

This sweater has never been worn. There is a reason why the picture shows it on the floor rather than on me. It currently lives at my parents' house.

A Meme

2006-09-27T13:54:00.000-04:00

I've decided to take up Grumperina's challege. Here are 10 knitterly things you might not know about me.

1. My mother and paternal grandmother taught me to knit when I was a young child (I'm not really sure how old I was- definitely not older than 8). One Christmas, I was given a pair of wooden size 10 needles, a ball of Brown Sheep worsted weight yarn that were packaged in a blue corduroy bag. I still have the first project I made. One of my current WIPs is using those needles,

and I always have a project in that little blue bag.

2. Until I went to college, knitting was not the only needlework I did. Knitting had to compete with cross stitch, needlepoint and sewing/quilting for time. Back then, I was a one-project-at-a-time kind of person. While I always had some sort of needlework going, it wasn't always knitting. Sometime in college I realized that my knitting projects were more useful than my other needlework projects so now knitting gets most of the time.

3. I made my first sweater when I was 13. I started with a bad pattern and bad yarn, and then altered the pattern in a way that probably didn't make it any better. That sweater has never been worn out of the house. It is still in a closet at my parents' house.

4. My first knitting book was Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Without Tears. I read it cover-to-cover, and then decided that I wanted to make mittens. All I knew how to do was knit and purl, but I managed to follow her directions and end up with a pair of wearable mittens. I still use those mittens when we go hiking in cold weather.

5. I've never liked following patterns. It's not that I don't like the way the projects look in the pictures, but rather that I find it too tedious to go through the step-by-step directions. I'd rather just look at the picture, decide what I like about it, and then make it in whatever yarn I happen to have. Besides, whenever I knit from a pattern I mess it all up. Like this one, where I reversed the shoulder shaping. It's still waiting to become a pillow.

6. I love knitting out of my stash. I love buying yarn, too, but mainly so that I will have it in my stash for later. I almost never buy yarn with a specific project in mind, and then use it to knit that project. I have yarn that I've bought for mittens, yarn that I've bought for sweaters, etc., but that's about as specific as I get.

7. When I go to start a new project, I usually have a type of garment in mind. Then I look at all the yarn that is the right weight/amount for such a project, and think about how it might be used. Every time I look at a batch of yarn, I have a different idea for how to use it. It becomes whatever project I think of when I'm ready to cast on.

8. I almost never swatch properly. When I do swatch, it is usually about 1 inch x 1 inch square. I've found that I have to start over just as often when I have swatched properly as when I've swatched the quick way.

9. I don't mind rough wools, but I hate knitting with synthetics. Yes, I'm a bit of a wool snob. But I really like alpaca, angora and cashmere too.

10. I'm not afraid to try any new knitting technique. The worst thing that can happen is that I rip it all out and use the yarn for something else. But that rarely ends up happening. If I spend enough hours trying to figure something out, I usually get it close enough to right.

A New (Old) House

2006-08-30T19:06:00.000-04:00

So it's been a while since my last post. I've been busy finishing a job, starting a job, and moving. I've left Boston behind, and am now a resident of Northern New York. The move has been (and still is) a lot of work, but so far we're really glad we did it. We now both love our jobs, and like the people we are working with. That makes life a whole lot easier. And we also now have a house. And in that house, I have a fiber room!

It isn't really unpacked yet, but it looks like my whole stash is going to fit in there. This makes my husband as happy as it makes me.

A knitalong? Me?

2006-05-18T14:12:00.000-04:00

In a move that is very much not like me, I joined a knitalong. While I usually don't like to let anyone influence what I am going to knit, it turns out that this one came along at just the right time. So which knitalong did I join? It's Trek Along With Me. It just so happens that I bought a ball of Trekking XXL at Webs that is next in line for socks. And it is more likely than not that any given weekend I'll be hiking at some point. So this time, I can knit along with a whole bunch of bloggers without changing my knitting plans (or weekend plans) at all. Here's the yarn I'm going to use:

It's Trekking XXL in color #90.

My first hike of the KAL is scheduled for June 3, and will be somewhere on the Kenai peninsula in Alaska. Hopefully I'll get a great picture! Ill see you when I get back.

Wet.

2006-05-16T11:08:00.000-04:00

In spite of the wet weather last weekend, I did make it to the NHS&W. I really didn't think I was going (we were spending the weekend with my husband's family who happen to live in NH), but it turns out my mother in law has been wanting to go to NHS&W all year. So, on Sunday we all piled into cars and braved the wet weather. I brought a camera, but it was raining too hard to pull it out. I think that my husband and mother in law were the only other members of the group who really enjoyed the experience. It might have had something to do with the fact that they were the only other members of the group dressed for the weather. Hats and mittens were really necessary. And jeans were not a good choice of pants. I did, however, manage to make a little purchase:

It's a Bosworth mini spindle made out of Tulipwood. It is beautiful, and spins effortlessly. I love it! Jonathan pointed out that it might have been a bit silly that we both drove up to NH so that I could buy one of his spindles, and that it probably would have been closer for me to just visit them in Acton, but I was at NHS&W anyway, and I liked the spindle, so why not buy it then?

I have also finished my felted bag:

It has been through the washer three times now, but I think it needs at least one more washing. I don't want to see any stitch definition! You can see the moebius twist on the left side of the picture. I was a bit skeptical about how a twist would work on a bag strap, but it does actually work well to keep the bag closed when I'm wearing it.

I've also started a new project:

It's a scarf to match my yellow and purple Latvian hat and mitten set. I'm using some nice bulky alpaca that I got on my recent Webs trip. The stitch pattern is Diagonal Brioche from Barbara Walker's Treasuries of Stitch Patterns. The reverse side of this pattern makes Brioche Knot Stitch. That means that this scarf will look great on both sides! In just three short evenings of knitting time, I'm almost a third of the way done with this scarf. If this weather keeps up much longer, I might actually get to wear it this season!

As quickly as my knitting has been going recently, I'm getting sick of these big needles! Somehow progress isn't as satisfying when it comes so quickly and with so little effort. I have a feeling that I'll be back to smaller needle projects soon.

The Spoils of Webs

2006-05-04T12:01:00.000-04:00

There has been knitting here, but there has not been blogging.

There has also been yarn buying. In fact, so much new yarn has entered my tiny home in the last week that I'm not going to show it to you. Instead, I'll just quietly start to use it and mention that it came from my most recent trip to Webs. And I'll hope that you all have very bad memories and won't actually realize how much yarn I bought at once (here's a hint- I had trouble lifting the bag of yarn off the counter). My husband (who actually told me that I should buy some yarn on this trip to Webs) does not know how much I bought. He only saw this:

He is quite sure that the two cones of yarn were not there before, and he doesn't think that the basket was quite so full before, but he doesn't really know how much yarn I hid away in other stash storage areas. That's a good thing.

So the first thing I did when I got home (after I hid the new purchases) was to start using some of that new yarn. I quickly realized that it was not all going to fit in the space that had been previously occupied by yarn, so I started by knitting a project that would use a lot of it up fast. This is Cascade 220, knit doubled on size 11 needles. If I didn't own the Boye needlemaster set, I would not have needles even close to a size 11. I never really thought I would use the larger sized needles in the set, but I guess they really are there for something.

This rather strange looking object is a mobius bag (I've really only knit the strap/handle so far)from Cat Bordhi's The Second Treasury of magical Knitting. It will be felted, and will hopefully shrink significantly. I'm on my third 100g skein since Sunday afternoon. This is clearly making space in the stash quickly.

I did plan for this yarn-buying trip by using up as much yarn as I could in the two days before I left. I made some more dishcloths...

...I made a bear for Mrs. Longwool's new baby...

(Magic Friends pattern from Idle Hours, purchased at my LYS. The yarn is Katia Velour, which is not really hairy enough for this pattern, but it did work)

...and I did my best to make good progress on my wheat ear rib sweater.

I'm not sure that the raglan shaping on the back is going to work, but in the meantime I started the front. I'll figure out the shaping when all the pieces are done. That way I'll get to rip out the tops of all four pieces. I like to do things the efficient way around here.

WEBS anyone?

2006-04-27T13:45:00.000-04:00

I have lots of projects going. And I have lots more yarn in my stash. So really, I shouldn't be buying yarn. However, I'm planning a trip to visit the biggest, and best yarn store in MA this weekend. There's still room left in my car if any of you Boston-area knitters want to join me in buying massive quantities of yarn (or at least being tempted to buy). The plan is to leave mid-morning on Saturday.

I promise to post progress pictures soon. I have been knitting a litte bit. And I'll have to knit a lot more in the next couple of days in order to make room for some new purchases.

Just a Dishcloth

2006-04-21T13:22:00.000-04:00

The two sweaters i've been working on lately (Komi and the wheat ear rib sweater) aren't going well. I realized that I had been in denial about the size of Komi, so I need to rip. I don't really feel like untangling the mess that shetland jumperweight yarn is going to become when I have 5 different colors in one big heap on the floor.

I thought the wheat ear rib sweater was going really well. I decided that it was going to be a raglan, and I knew how many stitches I had for the back. I decided how big I wanted the neck to be. I then consulted many published raglan sweater patterns, including Ann Budd's book of sweater patterns to determine at what rate I should decrease. Those patterns all suggested decrease rates that were similar to what I had calculated. I thought I was all set. It turns out that I made two mistakes:

1. I forgot that when you knit a raglan, the back decreases don't go all the way up to the shoulder.

2. The wheat ear rib pattern is a ribbing. It also has twisted stitches. These two facts mean that it pulls in A LOT. While the row gauge is similar to stockinette, the stitch gauge is not. There are more stitches per inch than in stockinette. This means that Ann Budd's decrease rate isn't going to work.

Here is what I have:

I have about one more inch of knitting before I need to have all the stitches outside the orange markers disappear. Perhaps this sweater will have a wider neck than I had planned. Or perhaps I will rip. We'll see. For now I'm going to knit that last inch and then move on to another piece. If there is ripping, it will be at the end.

To distract me from the sweater mess, I knit a dishcloth. I have never knit a dishcloth before, and I have never before had any interest in knitting one. Then I read the new Mason-Dixon knitting book, and suddenly had the urge to knit a dishcloth. I decided that it might be fun to have a colorful assortment of dishcloths to brighten up the chore of dishes. Here's the first one. I started knitting it on the subway, so I used the first stitch pattern that came into my head. In the future I'll probably consult a stitch dictionary, or at least think about it for more than 3 seconds before I start.

As soon as I finished, I wove in the ends and immediately tried it out. It doesn't work badly. It is possible that it requires the use of a bit more soap than a standard sponge, but it is cheerful. In my typical style, I did not just buy one ball of yarn to make dishcloths with to see how I liked them. Instead I bought 5 balls in different bright colors. You'll just have to wait until I knit them up to see what the colors are.

Finished Faroese

2006-04-06T18:22:00.000-04:00

I finally finished the double knit Faroese hat. I love it! Double knitting (at least in my hands) isn't as even as regular stockinette, but I think it has more character. And this hat is WARM!

One fun aspect of double knitting is that it produces a reversible fabric. This hat is grey on one side and red on the other.

I took advantage of it being reversible to make a fold-up contrasting brim:

I think I'm going to have to wait until next winter to wear this outside. Four layers of wool over my ears is a bit much for April.

Coasters

2006-04-04T13:33:00.000-04:00

Last night my husband used our ball of string to tie up our cardboard boxes for recycling. When he was done, he left it sitting near my knitting spot. As I was looking at it, it occurred to me that it might make interesting crocheted coasters. So, I gave it a try. This is what I came up with:

I used string from the hardware store and a size J crochet hook. It is just single crochet, and I did a 12 stitch by 12 row square. I like them!

A New Project!

2006-03-31T18:24:00.000-05:00

After doing some swatching, I started a new sweater.

So far I have about 5 inches of the back done. I think this is going to be a very simple sweater. Simple shaping and a simple stitch pattern with few or no edgings. This is the first time I've made such a plain sweater. But I think it's something I'll wear a lot. I really like the stitch pattern. It is "wheat ear rib" from Barbara Walker's first Treasury of Knitting Patterns. It is from the ribbings chapter, so as you might expect it is very elastic in the horizontal direction. My plan is not to do any waist shaping, but instead let the stitch pattern stretch (or not) to fit my body. We'll see how it goes. And the yarn? It couldn't be softer. It's Jaeger DK weight extra fine merino. It is stash yarn, so I'm still working on decreasing the yarn volume. I hope it holds up well once I'm wearing the sweater, but it's so soft that I don't really have high hopes.

I've been noticing a theme in the colors I've been knitting with lately. Here are the four projects I'm working on right now. Clockwise from top left we have the Koigu socks, the Faroese hat, the Komi sweater, and the wheat ear rib sweater. Maybe I need to branch out a bit.

A New Spindle

2006-03-28T17:15:00.000-05:00

My knitting, lately, has been entirely uninspiring. I don’t really like any of the projects I’m working on. First, there’s the Komi sweater. It’s gone. I was about half-way through the body, and finally realized that I had been in denial about the size. If I really stretched it, I could make it look like the measurement around my chest would be 38 inches. But, in reality, it was a 34-inch sweater. That’s some serious negative ease for a sweater that should be loose. I’ve started over, but there isn’t much to see.

Then there’s the Faroese double-knit hat. It’s inching along, but the pattern on the main part of the hat is so boring that I have a hard time making myself work on it. It doesn’t look much different than it did last time I posted about it.

There’s also the socks I started during the Olympics. One and a quarter are done, but I’m having trouble finishing. Plain stockinette is not my favorite knitting.

There might be some swatching in the near future. I have ideas for two new sweaters. I might get a good project out of one of them, or I might get something else to take up a perfectly good pair of needles.

Spinning, on the other hand, has been much more fun. And a new spindle has recently joined my arsenal.

The whorl is jasper, and the shaft is hicory. Cathy can tell you if some if its siblings are still available.

It’s a tiny 0.4 oz spindle that I’m using to try to spin laceweight. The spinning is going OK (I’m having a little trouble drafting, but I’m getting better), but the plying is a disaster. I just can’t see what I’m doing! I think I need to get a magnifying glass or something. Here are a couple of samples I spun. Neither one is perfectly balanced or even. The top one is camel and the bottom one is merino. Hopefully I’ll have a decent skein of yarn (with a less blurry picture) to show you soon.

Bloglines?

2006-03-23T22:39:00.000-05:00

Apparently bloglines isn't seeing this blog right now. Wake up!

New Yarn

2006-03-21T18:07:00.000-05:00

I have some new yarn to show, but I didn't increase the size of my stash. How did I do it? I spun the yarn from stash fiber.

First, some corriedale that I dyed a while ago. It is about 65 yards of a fingering to sport weight yarn. I have one other similar skein that I spun soon after I dyed it.

It's not very even, but I'll use it anyway. Any ideas for a project?

Next, I started spinning a beautiful batt that I got in a Knitsmiths yarn swap last year. I have no idea what the fiber is or who dyed it, but I'm guessing it's wool of some sort. I LOVE how this is coming out. The reds and blues and purples are blending beautifully. This is about 108 yards of a lace to fingering weight yarn. I have plenty more to spin, so right now I think this might become a lace scarf of some sort.

Both of these skeins were spun on my Bosworth midi spindle.

A Great Yarn

2006-03-15T20:49:00.000-05:00

I'm making the Faroese hat I showed you yesterday out of stash yarn. The red is Dale of Norway's Heilo, and the gray is Sandnes Uldvarefabrik's Peer Gynt.

The Heilo is a good basic yarn, but the Peer Gynt is one of my favorite yarns on the market. It is not a particularly soft yarn, and at first glance there is nothing special about it. However, I think that the most important characteristic of a yarn is its ability to stand up to time. When I spend a month or more knitting a sweater, I want it to still look good several years down the road. This yarn passes that test. This ball is left over from a sweater I knit about 12 years ago. In spite of the fact that I wear that sweater all the time, it still looks new. That's something you can't say about most of the nice soft yarns that are on the market.

A Faroese Hat

2006-03-14T17:20:00.000-05:00

While the Komi sweater is slowly growing back to where it was before I ripped, I thought I would show you a side project I've been working on:

It's going to be a double-knit hat. The two-color patterns are from a book of Faroese patterns. I'm planning to make it long enough that I can fold up the brim. That way both sides will be visible, and the hat will be twice as warm over my ears. I have a feeling that next winter when I'm remembering what -50 degrees F feels like, I'll be glad for all the warmth I can get!

I started this hat the first time I was frustrated with the Komi sweater. The border pattern was lots of fun, but then I got to the relatively plain (boring) body of the hat. Hopefully I can stay interested for long enough to finish the project.

sock on-the-go

2006-03-13T18:56:00.000-05:00

Thanks for all of your comments on my sweater shaping. After reading what all of you had to say about waist shaping, really examining my own shaping, and trying on the sweater, I decided that I needed to do some ripping. I decided that my rate of decreasing was good, but that I needed to increase more slowly. The sweater is about 4 inches smaller now, but I think I will be happier with it in the end.

Some of you may be wondering what happened to the socks that I was working on during the Olympics. I finished the first sock pretty quickly and cast on for the second one. Then I decided that these socks were WAY too boring for every day knitting. But, I just recently started taking the subway to work. I don't have a long ride, but I have time to get in a row or two going each way. I figure that's enough knitting for the sock to be done by next winter. However, I was having trouble knitting with the ball of yarn loose in my purse. Here's the package that is now getting thrown in my purse:

I've been storing the ball of yarn inside the growing sock, and just pulling gently when I need more yarn. It works perfectly. When I'm not knitting, my working needle prevents the ball of yarn from falling out. This is just one more reason to knit socks from the toe up!

It has a waist!

2006-03-08T13:26:00.000-05:00

I spent last weekend (plus a few days) visiting my parents and grandparents. I didn't have much time to knit while I was there, but I did put some of the airplane hours to good use. I'm past the waist shaping of my Komi sweater.

I love the way the pattern is coming out. I think that you can really start to see what it will look like. And the blue in the border doesn't bother me nearly as much now that I have more of the body done. The color changes in the main body pattern are a bit more subtle in person, and I think that they give the pattern a lot of interest. While the pattern may look complicated, it is actually very simple to knit. It's just a series of diamonds that are all the same size. The only tricky part is remembering how to connect them to each other.

I'm not really sure about my waist shaping. I used the shape of my body as a guide, and when I try it on the sweater seems to fit, but the decreases and increases look to me like they may be too abrupt. But when I look at my waist, the curves there look pretty abrupt too. I am extremely short-waisted, so most sweaters with shaping don't fit me right. This made it hard to find something to use as a guide. Hopefully a good blocking will be able to hide any problems. I'm really hoping that I won't have to rip out the body. Ripping makes me grumpy.

A belt or a sweater?

2006-02-23T15:42:00.000-05:00

Somehow, I'm making progress on my Komi sweater. For some reason, I didn't really think that would happen. But somehow it keeps getting a little bit bigger.

I'm not really sure if I like it or not. All 5 colors have now been used, and the main body pattern is starting to take shape. It's almost time to start the waist shaping. If I don't like it, I should start ripping soon. I'm not sure I like the blue in the border with the yellow of the main body. Maybe that's too much contrast and too much pattern. Also, this is the closest fitting sweater I've made (about 2 inches of ease), and I don't know if the fabric is too thick to make the sweater flattering. Maybe I need just a little bit more of the main body to be sure.

Olympaholic

2006-02-21T11:31:00.000-05:00

~~Blogger hasn't let me upload pictures for three days now. I hope you all have really good imaginations.~~
Edited to add: Blogger finally let me add the photos on my second try this afternoon!

I am addicted to the Olympics. I can’t seem to tear myself away from the television. I don’t usually watch any TV, so this is a big change in lifestyle. Fortunately it will all be over soon. You would probably think that all of this TV time would make for great knitting progress. However, because I’m not used to knitting in front of the TV I’m having trouble focusing on the sports and setting up the body patterning of my Komi sweater. Here’s what I have so far:

That means that I needed a simpler project. Here is what I ended up starting:

That is a toe-up sock made from Koigu and no particular pattern. The colors look pretty close to real life on my monitor.

I don’t usually knit socks. A long time ago (10-12 years ago?) I decided that I wanted to be sure that I could knit socks if I wanted to. So I knit a sock swatch with a heel and a toe. Then, a few years ago, my husband wanted kilt hose. I designed and knit some very pretty kilt hose for him. I’ve also made 4 or 5 Christmas stockings. That’s it for my sock knitting. Commercial socks fit me very well, and I tend to wear through them very fast. Sock knitting has never seemed quite worth it. Mittens, on the other hand, are very much my thing. They are small, portable, and interesting to knit. Unlike my feet, my hands are NOT an easy commercial size. I have very long fingers, but my hands are a normal circumference. I need a Men’s medium or large to accommodate my long fingers, but a women’s medium for the circumference. I do better by making them myself. Working on mittens was another reason not to knit socks.So why did I finally decide to make myself socks? A few years ago I bought three skeins of Koigu. I loved the colors, and wanted to make it into a scarf. After trying four times to make a scarf out of it, I gave up. I just wasn’t getting a fabric that seemed very scarf-ish. I’m trying to work down the stash, and I do really like the colors of the Koigu, so I decided to just make it into socks and be done with it. The only problem is that I’m really liking the sock so far. It is possible that I just might make more. After all, I do have quite a pile of mittens….

Moving On

2006-02-17T15:35:00.000-05:00

This is one of my rare posts that does not focus on knitting. If you want knitting, come back Monday and I'll show you some progress on my Komi sweater. If you are a graduate student or postdoc in the sciences, or if you are planning to do graduate work in the sciences, you might find this post helpful.

You may have noticed that I have made very little knitting progress lately. The reason is that I was on the academic job market this year, looking for a job as a professor of biochemistry. For anyone who is not familiar with the process, it involves putting together a flawless multi-component application that is personalized to each job, sending it to many colleges and universities, and then waiting to see if you get an interview. Preparation for interviews requires many hours of research about the institution and the 30+ people you will meet with over two days, as well as preparing a presentation about your research. This is all extremely time consuming, and could easily be a full-time job for 4-5 months. It is also extremely stressful. Unlike the job market in other industries, there is only one time per year that you can apply. If none of your applications are successful, you need to wait a full year to try again. It is also very competitive. There are typically at least 250 applications for each position. These are facts that every graduate student should know before they begin their first year. If I had known, I may not have decided to finish my degree.

I decided a long time ago that I wanted to be a professor at a small liberal arts college. Because of this, I decided not to do a traditional postdoc. Instead, I stayed in the lab where I did my PhD for an extra year to finish up my project and apply for jobs. I applied for relatively few positions (I applied for 7 jobs while everyone else I know who was on the job market applied for 30-40 positions). Looking back on the process, I would have applied for even fewer positions. I now realize that it is all about fit, and any one individual only fits in a few of the available jobs.

I feel very fortunate that I am now finished with the process. I was offered a tenure-track position at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY and I have decided to accept their offer. This job seems like a perfect fit. They even made a job for my husband. The only problem is that it is in a VERY rural location. It will be quite an adjustment after living in the Boston area for the past 6 years. But at least housing is cheap! Do any of you live in the Canton area?

The adventure of moving will begin soon, but I'll hopefully have a little bit of free time first.

Latvian Hat Pattern

2006-02-09T19:51:00.000-05:00

In case anyone is interested, here's the pattern for my Latvian Hat. Please know that I am not a professional designer, and this pattern has not been test-knit. I don't think that there are any mistakes in it, but I won't know for sure until someone else knits it. This hat has now been knit by someone other than me. Look here (Ravelry) for a beautiful version knit in Dalegarn Baby Ull (a great fingering weight choice for hats). If you decide to knit this pattern, please let me know. I would love to know if it worked well for you, and to see how your hat turned out. Here is a picture of the finished hat (more pictures are available here):

Yarn: Satakieli, one ball yellow, one ball purple. You will need about half a ball of each color.
Gauge: 41 sts and 42 rows/4 inches in pattern
Needles: size 1 double pointed needles (I used a set of 6, but you could use as few as 4. If you use less than 6 needles, you may want to place markers between repeats.), and size 1 16-inch circular needle
Size: 22.5 inch circumference. The best way to adjust this is by changing the gauge.

Notes: In the chart below, marked squares are yellow, blank squares are purple. The dark line that outlines the bottom of the chart is the boundary of the pattern. Anything outside of that line is just extra graph paper. The chart will be repeated 5 times for the pattern. The first row of the chart is the cast-on.

Instructions:
With yellow, Cast-on 5 stitches. Join and divide stitches over 3-5 double pointed needles to knit in the round.
Row 1: With yellow, knit in the front, back, then front of each stitch.
Row 2-36: Continue to follow the chart. All increases are made by knitting in the front and back of the first and/or last stitch on the needle.
Rows 37-75: Change to circular needle and knit even, following the chart as established.
Row 75: Knit 1 purple, knit 1 yellow around while decreasing 22 stitches evenly spaced.
Row 76: Bring both colors to the front. Purl 1 purple, Purl 1 yellow always bringing the new color OVER the other one. This will cause your working yarns to become very twisted. Pull out enough yarn so that you can push the twist away from you. Do NOT untwist the strands yourself.
Row 77: With both colors in the front, purl 1 purple, purl 1 yellow always bringing the new color UNDER the other one. This will untwist your working yarns.
Row 78: Knit with purple.
Row 79: Knit 1 purple, knit 1 yellow around.
Rows 80-81: Repeat row 77, then repeat row 76.
Cast off with purple.

Latvian Hat Version 1.2

2006-02-06T19:09:00.000-05:00

I finished my latvian hat,

but the brim needs some work. First, I think that the whole hat is a bit too long. Second, the Latvian braids flare out. I always forget that my gauge is looser when I do the braids than it is in the pattern. There's a little bit of re-knitting to do, but I'm getting close!

The Path to a Star

2006-02-01T18:45:00.000-05:00

I finished fixing the hat, and I really like the result.

The Front:

The Back: You can see the round beginning/end. It's not totally jogless, but it's good enough for me.

It looks great with the mittens, too!

Now, a little bit about the design process:

I started the project knowing only what the main body of the hat would look like. I wanted the hat to match the mittens, so the pattern was already chosen. I knew how big each repeat was, and a very small amount of math told me that I would need 5 repeats to fit around my head (22 inches total).

My first thought was to just have the tops of the diamonds meet at the top of the hat. This required me to increase 10 stitches each row. You can see the result here. This was too fast a rate of increasing, so the top of the hat would not have laid right on my head. If I had the right number of repeats (I think that the right number would have been 4, but I'm not sure) this would have worked.

So, what WOULD the right rate of increasing be, keeping in mind that the hat would need 5 identical parts? Well, the idea is to have the crown of the hat be a slightly curved (convex or concave, depending on your point of view) circle, and to have the straight part of the hat start at the same point that the straight part of your head starts.

If I wanted to make the crown be a perfectly flat circle, I would need the radius of the crown to equal the radius of the circle that the straight part of the hat makes. The circumference of the straight part of the hat is 22 inches (according to my gauge). Because 2(Pi)(radius)=circumference, I can calculate the radius to be about 3.5 inches. That means that I need the increases to "last" for 3.5 inches (or slightly more, since I want my circle to be slightly curved).

Because I know my row gauge (approx. 10 rows/inch), I decided to use 37 rows for my crown. I then needed to figure out where I was going to place the increases. There were less than 37 increase rows. I put 1/2 of the increase rows at the beginning, then increased every other row after that. I knew where in the diamond pattern I needed to stop increasing (based on knitting the mittens), so I drew that part of the pattern on graph paper. From there, it was just a matter of filling in the space above the diamond pattern. It was really just chance (and the way it works out when you place the tops of 5 diamonds together) that I ended up with a star on top. Chance can do good things for your knitting!

I hope I haven't lost you in this explanation. Part of my goal with this blog is to help people see that designing isn't really that hard, and you end up with exactly what you want. You just have to be willing to try a few things until everything works out. In the end, you'll learn a lot about how knitting works, and how garments are designed.

inching along

2006-02-01T11:26:00.000-05:00

I finally had some time to work on my Latvian Hat last night. This project is going very slowly. That probably has something to do with the 220 stitches per round and the limited knitting time lately. I love the way it is turning out so far. The star on the crown is finished and the increases are done. I'm now working on the body of the hat. I can't wait to wear it!

Starting Over

2006-01-26T19:08:00.000-05:00

The new skein of purple yarn arrived, but it was a VERY different dye lot than the skein I had started the hat with. It was so different that I almost thought I had ordered the wrong color. It IS the same color, but I had to start the hat over.

Redoing the start of the hat gave me the opportunity to change the shaping. I decided that I had increased too quickly in the first version, so I charted out a new increase scheme. The bonus is that I was able to make a star on top.

I'm almost done with the increases. Then I'll switch to a 16 inch circular and things will go a lot faster. I can knit fast on double pointed needles if I want to, but during that break between needles I'm often tempted to examine how it is looking so far.

I haven't had much knitting time lately, and that isn't likely to change any time soon. The Komi sweater is moving along at a rate of less than a row per day. If that keeps up, this sweater should be done in a couple of years. Hopefully life will calm down eventually.

Komi, take 2

2006-01-18T20:18:00.000-05:00

I started knitting the Komi sweater. At first, it seemed to be going well. I knit a facing. I knit a picot turning row. Then I started to knit a border. I decided to bring in another color (and pattern) in the border, so the background of the border will be blue. I thought it was looking good.

Then I started to suspect that maybe it was a bit too big around. I spread it out on a few needles, and this is what I saw:

yes, that is the 23 inch mark that my sweater start reaches. That means that the sweater would be at least 46 inches around. More careful measuring (with a tape measure, going around the curve) indicated that if I kept knitting I would end up with a sweater that was 50 inches around. I was aiming for about 40 inches around. 10 inches makes a big difference. Even after my carefully measured gauge swatch, my gauge was very different than I thought it was. I think it has something to do with the swatch being knitted on double pointed needles, and the sweater being knitted on a circular needle. I can't imagine what else could account for such a difference in gauge. This is why I often don't do a gauge swatch. If I'm going to rip out my first try anyway, I might as well not waste time knitting a swatch.

I did a bit of recalculation taking into account my new gauge, and I cast on again. The good news is that instead of knitting on 360 stitches, I now only have 288. It does go a little bit faster now. And I am almost back to the point where I noticed this little problem.

To answer some questions:

1. "Komi" refers to the ethnic group that designed the color pattern I am using. The Komi are a Finno-Ugric ethnic group that lives in European Russia near the arctic circle. Their knitting patterns are, in some ways, related to those of other Finno-Ugric groups (For example, the Estonians). However, they also have some unique qualities. Because these patterns were passed down from generation to generation without writing, they are very easy to learn and to remember. They consist of lines that are three stitches wide. The lines move over by one stitch on every row. Also, every third row is *knit 3 with color A, knit 3 with color B; repeat from *. To the best of my knowledge, the only English language book that describes these patterns is Charlene Schurch's Knitting Marvelous Mittens.

2. The yarn I am using is some Jamieson's Shetland jumperweight wool that I have had in my stash for a while. I am supplementing it with a few skeins of Jamieson and Smith Shetland jumperweight wool in a color that complements the ones I already had. The new wool arrived yesterday, and it looks great with the other colors. I can't wait to start knitting it!

3. I haven' t made a lot of decisions about this project yet. It will be a pullover, but I'm not sure what construction I'll use. It will definitely be knit entirely in the round. I may use steeks, or I may knit it in one piece from the bottom up with set-in sleeves. I used the one piece technique once before, and it worked pretty well (other than a slight sizing issue). And I would prefer to avoid all the effort of steeks if I can. It will all depend on how similar my stitch gauge and row gauge are.

Komi Pattern

2006-01-11T21:37:00.000-05:00

I'm well on my way to having a pattern for my Komi sweater. I finished the swatch (two pattern repeats around, half a pattern repeat high),

I measured it (9 stitches and 9 rows per inch), I put safety pins into each color of yarn where it stopped being part of the swatch, and then I ripped it out. I used my trusty yard stick to measure how much of each color I used. I knit the equivalent of one full repeat of the pattern. I then fingured out how many repeats of the pattern I will need to make a sweater (71 repeats). I tried to estimate on the high side just to be sure I would have enough yarn to finish. In case you are interested (and in case you can actually read it), here is how I plan a sweater:

I am going to use the same colors I used in the swatch, except for the dark yellow/brown. I think it is not bright enough to contrast with the red, so it splits the pattern. Instead, I'm going to substitute a solid mustard color yarn. I'm just going to trust that it will work. If not, I'll have some ripping to do. I'm also going to switch where I do my color changes. I'm going to make the yellow color bands wide (9 rows of the solid mustard, 15 rows of the lighter yellow above), and the red bands thick and thin (21 rows of dark red, three rows of light red). I'm going to trust that this will work too.

It's time to order the new yarn color and get started!

half-way there

2006-01-09T18:52:00.000-05:00

I'm halfway to buying the extra skein of yarn I need to finish my Latvian hat. I used almost exactly 100g of manos (I had about 1 yard left over) to make this hat:

Front view of me trying to take a picture of myself wearing the new hat. The brim uses a simple slip stitch pattern from the Barbara Walker Treasuries.

Now a shot from the top to show how I incorporated the brim pattern into the decreases. I decreased six stitches evenly around by K2tog, and then used the slip-stitch pattern on the next stitch. I maintained that stitch in pattern all the way up. I didn't need to use stitch markers to know when to decrease, and I think it adds a bit of interest to an otherwise boring hat. The slip-stitch pattern shows up nicely because I used reverse stockinette for the body of the hat.

Then I decided to make matching mittens:

However, I hate the mittens. I hate everything about them. I hate the way they look, I hate the way they fit, and I hate how they were knit. This mitten probably won't exist in a few days.

I am trying not to make single accessories that match NOTHING I own. Therefore, I decided to try my hand at a matching scarf:

I'm not far enough along to hate this one yet. However, I remembered a few things while knitting with this manos:

1. I hate thick-and-thin yarns. If I wanted to knit with something that was spun this badly, I would spin it myself.
2. I hate knitting with thick yarns. Once in a while, it's fine. However, I usually don't love the results, and it's slow and awkward to do.
3. The instant gratification is nice, but it doesn't make up for the process.

Because I knit for the process rather than the product, I went back to knitting with yarn I love at a gauge I love.

This is Shetland jumperweight 2-ply yarn from the stash that I am knitting in a Komi (Russian) pattern (it's the pattern on the cover of the book). What you see is a swatch. I don't usually swatch, but this is an exception. I don't know if I'm going to have enough yarn to make this into a sweater or not. Therefore, I'm going to knit two repeats of the pattern in the round, then rip it out and measure how much yarn it used. I'll then figure out how many repeats I'll need to make a sweater. I can then figure out how much yarn I'll need in each color.

In other news:

Last night, as I was trying to come up with something to knit, my husband told me that he thought I should order the yarn to finish the Latvian hat, even if I didn't knit anything from the stash first. He said that he thought the hat was to pretty to not finish it this winter. So, as soon as I know if I will need to order a couple more skeins to make my Komi sweater, there will be a yarn order being placed. I may go from having too few projects in progress to having too many!

I ran out

2006-01-05T17:41:00.000-05:00

It turns out I had less of the purple yarn for my hat than I thought. This is how far I got:

I've finished the crown, and done a few rows of the straight part of the hat. I'm not sure if I like it or not. I think there might be too many increases too fast. There is more fabric than would be necessary to make the crown flat. Does anyone have any opinions about how this will make the hat look on my head? I have an idea in my head that when I wear this hat on my curved head which will push the fabric up and out, it will all lay flat. But I could be totally wrong. This wouldn't be the first time I totally messed up on the garment shaping front.

In order to find out how this will turn out, I'll have to order another skein of the purple yarn. However, I really REALLY need to decrease the volume of my stash. By most people's standards I don't have a big stash, but most people don't share 455 square feet with another person (who also has space-consuming hobbies). The yarn I need to buy comes in 100g skeins. Before I can add that 100g to the yarn collection, I first need to knit at least 200g of yarn that is already there. If I continue this plan for a while, hopefully I'll decrease the yarn volume AND get to buy the yarn I want.

Next up: a hat and mittens using Manos del Uruguay. This is the closest my stash comes to bulky. My new plan is going to get harder to stick to once I use up my small supply of thicker yarns.

Avoiding the Inevitable

2005-12-13T20:29:00.000-05:00

I started a hat to match the purple and yellow mittens I showed you yesterday.

It is still very small (about 2 inches across), but I already know that I am going to run out of purple yarn. The yarn is Satakieli, which has very good yardage (100 g skeins of fingering weight wool). However, I have already used that skein of yarn to make the purple and yellow mittens as well as the red and purple mittens that I showed yesterday. There isn't much yarn left. So, I decided to start the hat from the top. I figure that if (when) I run out, instead of ending the hat with the pretty Latvian braid that is on the mittens, I can always do some yellow ribbing. Hopefully I make it far enough that the ribbing doesn't look dumb. I REALLY don't want to buy another skein of this.

Done, Done, and Done!

2005-12-12T19:03:00.000-05:00

I finished the fish blanket. I ripped out the border and tried to crochet again. The first time the edge was too loose, this time the edge is too tight. I'm just leaving it. I didn't take a picture because I packed it in the box before I had a chance to change my mind. I included some of the red yarn I used to connect all the pieces, so if the mom doesn't like it, she can fix it herself. That's the beauty of giving handknit gifts to knitters.

I also finished the mittens and mitten liners for my sister in law:

I really like how they came out. They are soft on the inside, durable on the outside, and extremely warm. I hope she likes them as much as I do!

Here's the details:
Outer mittens:
Yarn: Jamieson and Smith color #124 (purple), Jamieson's color #150 (blue) and Jamieson and Smith color #9143 (red)
Needles: size 1 double points
Pattern: adapted from the Pattern from Hangvar in The Mitten Book by Gottfridsson and Gottfridsson. I added a wide thumb gusset and a corrugated rib cuff.

Liners:
Basic mittens (no pattern) that mimic the shape of the outer mittens, but they are a little bit smaller. They have a 2x2 rib cuff that is slightly shorter than the outer mittens.
Needles: size 1 double points
Yarn: 100% alpaca fingering/sport weight that was left over from a sweater. I have about 1 yard left now!

Next up: I have two pair of Latvian mittens that both need matching hats. I'm not sure which one I'll do first. Maybe something to match the yellow ones? I think I have enough yarn for at least one of the hats.

Ripping again

2005-12-07T19:03:00.000-05:00

Thanks for all the nice comments about the fish blanket.

I folded it up and put it in a box with a note and washing instructions. But I couldn't make myself close the box. The blanket is just not right. It is an example of poor workmanship, and I can't give that to someone else as a gift. If my Aunt had made that blanket for herself, she would rip it out and make it right. So I shouldn't give it to her as a gift when it looks wrong. I'm going to ignore the puckering of the fish heads because I don't really know what I could do that would fix it, and if I lay the blanket on a soft sufrace and smooth it out, the puckering disappears. But I think I have some ideas for how to fix the border. I'm going to try using a larger crochet hook and crocheting less frequently around the outside. Hopefully it looks better!

Finished Fish

2005-12-06T19:40:00.000-05:00

Wow! You all had a lot of different opinions about how the fish should be arranged. When I started knitting them, I had option #1 in mind. But, once they were done, I decided to go with option #3. I thought it had the most interest, and I liked how the two light colors ended up in the middle and on the corners.

The fish baby blanket is finished, but I'm not really happy with how it turned out.

This is the result after hand washing it, then machine washing it, then machine drying it. After hand washing (and still after machine washing) this blanket GREW! It grew to about twice its original size and looked horribly stretched out. Fortunately, the dryer shrunk it back to the two feet by three feet that I started with.

You can probably see that the fish on the top and bottom look a bit disfigured. I think it has something to do with the crocheted edging. Also, every single one of the fish heads puckers. I think that's because I crocheted the fish together too tightly. But it seemed very loose as I was doing it. I'm not really sure what went wrong or how I would make it better, but I don't like it the way it is. In any case, it will be mailed off tomorrow. The way I look at it, there isn't much I can do at this point, and really I just want it out.

Fish Layout

2005-12-02T10:40:00.000-05:00

I've finished reknitting fish! I decided to only rip out enough of them so that I would have enough yarn to make all six dark blue ones. The dark blue fish aren't all the same size, but I decided that the bigger ones actually fit better with the other colors than the reknit smaller ones do.

The next question is how to arrange the colors in the blanket. Which layout do you like best?

Option #1:

Option #2:

Option #3:

You may notice that in all three of my favorites (I did try about 5 other arrangements last night, but I'll spare you the gory details) there is a logical arrangement of the colors. Random is not an option.

It looks like the finished blanket will be just over two feet wide by just under three feet long. Please try to ignore the many, many ends that still need to be woven in.

Fish Problems

2005-11-30T18:43:00.000-05:00

I was all set to show you all 24 fish for the fish blanket completed and ready to be seamed. I had finished number 23, and I was well on my way with number 24. Then I ran out of yarn. I made six green fish, six yellow fish, and six light blue fish. And I had extra yarn left over in all of those colors. Then I tried to make six dark blue fish, and ended up here:

Why did I run out of yarn? I laid out fish of each color on top of each other, and this is what I found:

Their heads are all lined up. Look at their tails to see how much bigger some of them are.

Each color fish came out a different size. All the light blue fish are the same size, all the green fish are the same size, but each color is its own size. And the dark blue ones are the biggest of all. I used the same needle and the same yarn (except in different colors) for all of the fish. It could be that I knit at a different tension for each color (although I did mix up the order I knit them in), or it could be that the different colors of yarn are slightly different weights.

So what did I decide to do about this? Start ripping. I decided that the light blue, green and yellow fish are all close enough to the same size that a little blocking will fix any differences. But the dark blue ones are really significantly bigger. And besides, I don't want to buy another ball of yarn. After all, what am I going to do with an almost full ball of cascade 220 superwash? I don't even like superwash wool. The only time I knit with it is when I'm knitting for babies. Six more fish to go. This time, I'll knit a bit tighter.

Wedding Shawls in Action

2005-11-28T17:07:00.000-05:00

We finally have our wedding pictures! We are very happy with the way they turned out. Our photographer was Karen Pike. The pictures were both taken at the Mountain Top Inn in Chittenden, Vermont. Here are a couple of the best shawl pictures. If you want to see more pictures, email me and I'll send you the link and password for the website.

The junior bridesmaid's shawl turned out a little bit smaller than I had hoped. Unfortunately, her parents' measurement of her wingspan (finger tip to finger tip with her arms straight out to the sides) was 10 inches off. I'm not sure how that happened. But she loved the shawl anyway. When her mother suggested that she might want to pass it on to her daughter or granddaughter, she said that she was always going to keep it for herself- she didn't want to pass it on to anyone. It was definitely worth making the one last shawl for her. The other girls loved their shawls too, and both have already worn them a second time. My shawl is too long to wear as a shawl in any other context, but it is narrow enough that I can wear it as a scarf.

Mitten Progress

2005-11-28T13:47:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving weekend was full of knitting time. The recipient of these mittens knows that I am making them for her, and she knows what the general color and pattern scheme are, but she doesn't know exactly what they look like or when she is going to get them. So, because I spent the weekend with her, I focused on making the mitten liners. The outer mittens are made of Shetland wool that some people find to be a bit scratchy. To make the mittens less scratchy and much warmer, the lining is made out of some leftover alpaca from a sweater I made myself last year. Here's what I have so far:

Just 4 thumbs, four cuffs, and a bit of the second liner left to go.

It's a good thing that these are getting close to being finished. They will be gifted on December 18th.

knit, frog, knit, frog, ...

2005-11-19T16:35:00.000-05:00

The mittens for my sister-in-law were supposed to be easy. First, they are mittens. I have knit mittens many, many times. Second, the two-color pattern couldn't be easier. I memorized it before I even cast on- all it took was a couple of glances. So, why was I glad that I decided to knit these out of sturdy shetland wool that can be knit and ripped several times without showing the wear?

1. I started out on 80 stitches. After about a quarter of an inch, it looked way too big. I ripped.

2. I cast on 60 stitches and got started. That seemed to be a good number. I started on the two-color pattern and realized that the blue and red have NO contrast with the purple. I ripped.

3. I again cast on 60 stitches and started with some different color combinations. I decided to take some liberty with my instructions to make purple the main/background color. The colors looked a bit better, but now the mitten was way too small. I ripped.

4. I went back to casting on 80 stitches, and started knitting with the most recent color combinations. The size was good, but after a few inches I decided I didn't like some of the color combinations. I ripped out a couple of inches and changed the order of the color combinations.

5. I finished the hand part of the first mitten. I love it! All along, I thought I was going to hate these mittens. But I think they turned out great. And I think the recipient will like them too. Now for mitten #2. Then they get cuffs and thumbs.

Fishy Knitting

2005-11-16T17:14:00.000-05:00

The knitting for the fish blanket is almost done. I only have 4 more fish to go. That means that it is almost time to start on the Christmas knitting. Ideally, I have two projects I would like to finish in time for Christmas. The first is a pair of mittens for my husband's sister. She told me over the summer that she wanted me to knit her a pair of mittens. I brought her the Jameison and Smith color card and a pile of mitten books so that she could pick her colors and pattern. She chose a very simple pattern out of The Mitten Book by Ingrid and Inger Gottfridsson.

I'm not going to knit this exactly according to the pattern. We decided to add a corrugated ribbing cuff and a thumb gore. But the Fair Isle pattern on the hand will be the same as the one in the picture.

Starting this project gave me an opportunity to use a new toy: my yarn swift. This was a birthday gift last April, but this is the first time since then that I've knit with yarn that doesn 't come in balls. If you look at the bottom left corner of this picture, you can see the yarn all wound up into center pull balls. I don't have a ball winder so I wind the balls by hand. But the swift definitely made it go a lot faster!

This picture also shows my knitting seat, complete with my pile of finished fish.

Now it's time to cast on!

Piles of Fish

2005-11-10T18:07:00.000-05:00

I've been working very hard to finish the Fishies Blanket for my Aunt's now-not-so-new baby. I decided to make the blanket a bit smaller than I had planned. It will now have 24 fish in it. That should make a blanket that is just under 3 feet x 3 feet. Big enough to use in the stroller or car seat, etc. but not huge. I've finished the light blue and yellow fish (6 each), I'm half-way done with the green fish, and I need 5 more dark blue fish. The fish only take me about an hour each, but they do take some concentration not to miss any of the increases/decreases.

(when they aren't in piles the fit together much better. And the colors are better in person. Any suggestions for how to photograph light yellow and navy blue in the same photo?)

This blanket is a bit more work than I usually put into baby knits, but I think my Aunt will understand the work that went into it and appreciate it. She chooses not to knit (she doesn't like it, but has knit some very complex, challenging patterns) but she does a lot of sewing and quilting. Our wedding present from her is a beautiful quilt that isn't quite done yet. At my wedding we swopped glimpses of our unfinished projects that are meant for each other. I'm hoping to be done first because while our bed will always be ready for her quilt, her baby won't be small enough for this blanket forever!

I'm Married!

2005-11-07T18:31:00.000-05:00

While this post has absolutely no knitting content, there are sheep.

After a very long absence, I'm back. While I was gone, I was busy with great things. First, I got married. The wedding was wonderful, even though it rained several inches per day for the whole weekend. The photographer has told us that she took literally thousands of pictures, but we won't have them for another two weeks. If there are any good pictures of the shawls, I'll post them here.

Then we went on our honeymoon. It was a great trip. I highly recommend Sardinia as a vacation spot. It is a beautiful island with beautiful mountains and beaches, surrounded by the Mediteranean Sea. And they have lots and lots of sheep. When we went hiking, we saw sheep being grazed near the tops of mountains.

(the little white dots in the middle of this pictue are sheep. Look closely.)

When we drove along the roads, we saw sheep in their pastures. We even saw a shepard running his sheep down the middle of the road.

(This picture was taken by my husband. I was too busy trying to learn how to drive a car with a manual transmission on narrow roads that wind their way up, down, and through the mountains.)

Unfortunately, there was little opportunity to purchase wooly products. A bit of Sardinian yarn would have been a good souvenir. But it was still fun to see the sheep.

I have done a little bit of knitting lately, but not much. I'm starting to wonder how I used to find time to knit. There's just so much to do.... I'll show you knitting sometime soon.

Wedding Shawls are DONE!

2005-10-04T18:52:00.000-04:00

All 4 of my wedding shawls are now knit, blocked, the ends woven in, and they are ready to wear. Here, my wedding dress (in its protective plastic that the seamstress said not even I could open until I was ready to put the dress on for the actual wedding) is modeling the last shawl- the one for my junior bridesmaid.

I am generally happy with how this one came out. I might have done the bottom a little bit differently, and I don't love how I joined the border to the top edge on the right-hand side, but no one will ever know the difference. My biggest problem with it is how I finished off the border on the top corners.

I think it could have used one more leaf on the side of the corner. But it doesn't bother me enough to change it. I hope it fits!

No blogging and not much knitting

2005-09-28T10:14:00.000-04:00

There has been very little knitting going on here. Yesterday, for example, I did not knit a single stitch. Why is this? There are several reasons:

1. Job applications. I am in the process of applying for jobs to teach a small liberal arts colleges. Some of those applications need to be in by sometime next week.

2. My wedding. It is amazing how long it takes to do the small last minute tasks. Last night I spent over an hour trying to get a ceremony program to print with all of the text right-side-up and with all of the pages in the right order. Who would have thought?

3. Helping my grandparents get ready to move. They are leaving to house they have lived in for over 50 years in order to live closer to my parents. My grandfather is a collector of everything. Moving them is not an easy task.

4. I am teaching this semester. So far, it has been very time consuming.

5. I have a full-time job doing biological research. One of these days I should actually do some research.

Hopefully by the end of this weekend I'll have some knitting to show you.

One Fish...

2005-09-14T21:13:00.000-04:00

I wasted no time yesterday before going across the river to a good LYS. A very friendly and helpful employee suggested that I use Cascade 220 Superwash for the baby blanket. This is what I bought:

(sorry for the blurry picture- none of the crisp ones showed the colors right)

When I got home yesterday night, I immediately cast on for the first fish. Here he is:

Only 43 left to go! (or less if I run out of time- I'm planning to give away the finished blanket at my wedding) If you want to see finished versions of the blanket, look here or here.

I also finally felted the purple and black heap of yarn that I finished knitting a while ago. It is a trifold mobius bowl. I'm not too happy with how it turned out. I used brown sheep worsted weight yarn, but I think the needles I used must have been too small. It didn't felt enough, even after three trips through the machine. At least it didn't take long to make.

I'm trying to work on the last shawl for a while tonight, but the fish keep trying to pull me in....

The Mailman Was Good to Me

2005-09-12T18:38:00.000-04:00

But my LYS wasn't.

I have two new knitting projects that need to be started soon.

First, several months ago I promised my soon-to-be sister in law that I would knit her mittens. But, to be sure that she would like the mittens, I wanted her to pick out the colors and the pattern. We looked at a color card together, and this is what she chose. Fortunately, I already had the blue yarn in my stash, so depending on how much yarn the mittens take this could help remove yarn from the stash. I'm not sure I like the red/orange color on top with the purple heather, but hopefully it will look good in the mittens. What mittens did she choose? Well, I showed her about 6 books of possibilities (I have a lot of mitten books), and she picked some very simple ones that are a combination of a couple of patterns. You'll have to wait and see them knitted up.

I also need to knit a baby blanket. My aunt just gave birth to her second son over the weekend. The baby was four weeks early. I was planning to knit a quick blanket in the last minute, but now I really need to get going on it. I have a pattern picked out (the fish blanket from Knitter's magazine #51), and I went to my LYS today to buy some yarn for it. I thought I knew just what I wanted- a few more skeins of gems merino opal to add to the colors I already have. However, their color selection was terrible. Half of the bin was filled with pink, and the rest of the colors were too dark for a baby blanket. So I asked one of the women working there what other worsted weight, superwash yarn they had. Instead of pointing me to a few choices, she informed me that washing instructions are printed on the yarn labels. She was then shocked when I suggested that she might know off hand what superwash yarns they had. What service! If I have time later in the week to drive across town to a much better LYS, I'll buy some yarn there. Otherwise, I'll have to buy it online. If local yarn stores want to stay in business, then they need to provide better service than the internet. Not worse service.

On the wedding shawl front, I am almost done with the fourth of four shawls. Here is an unblocked heap of red yarn that just needs a border across the top edge and a good blocking. There are a couple of design challenges left to go, but I'm optimistic that this one will be done soon.

non-photogenic knitting

2005-09-06T18:58:00.000-04:00

I've been knitting lately, but none of it makes for a good picture.

I made the trifold rim bowl out of the Second Treasury of Magical Knitting. That means that I followed two patterns in one month! I think this is a record! Unfortunately, I have not had time to felt the bowl yet, so it looks a lot like a heap of purple and black knitting. My soon-to-be husband modeled it as a hat, but I'm too nice to post that picture here. Let's just say that it wasn't flattering.

I've also been working on the last of the wedding shawls. That looks like a heap of red knitting. But I have made progress. My junior bridesmaid is now more than 1/3 of the way to having a shawl to wear. That would make the shawl about 43 inches across the top. I'm not sure if that is a good size or not. I only have two increases every other row, so it is very pointed. I don't want it to be too long on her, but I do want it to be big enough across the top so that she will be able to wear it when she is older. She is now 10 years old, but has a very small frame. What do you think? How long down the back is too long? What is a good length across the top?

Three down...

2005-08-30T17:30:00.000-04:00

One to go.

I finished the second of the Bridesmaids' Shawls. There is no need to post a picture. It is identical to the first one. When I have the second one all blocked and dry, I'll post a picture of them together just so you know that there really are two of them.

I've also started a shawl for my junior bridesmaid. She's 10 years old, but small for her age. I want to make her something that she can wear now without looking like she is wearing her mother's clothes, but that she can also wear when she is grown up. I also have limited time for this project. About six weeks of knitting time left to go. Who knows how big a shawl I'll have time to make? So, I'm making this one triangular. I've started at the bottom point, and I'm knitting on the leaf border as I go. That way, when I run out of time all I'll have to do is put on a border along the top edge. Also, I think that triangular shawls of varying sizes can be worn comfortably. So, here is what I have so far.

(I had some lighting problems with the photos. These red shawls are hard to take pictures of!)

This may be the last time I can stretch it out to take a good picture of it for a while. But, because I've already used the same yarn and the same needles for two similar shawls, I should be able to estimate how big it will be after blocking all along the way. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to stretch it out wider when I'm blocking it. Right now, it measures 13 inches from tip to top and about 15 inches across the top.

But if you think that means that there won't be any pictures here for a while, think again. There are two new projects just being born. But I'll save those for another rainy day. It looks like we'll have enough rainy days over the next week here in the Boston area to go around.

Spam and knitting lace

2005-08-25T10:36:00.000-04:00

OK, so blogger is working out well, but I've been getting a lot of comment spam. Why anyone thinks I really want to read that stuff, I don't know. I turned on word verification, so hopefully that will solve the problem.

In knitting news, I did manage to get home in time to take down my shawl. It is now all blocked and ready to wear. I'll take some modeled photos the next time I'm home alone for a while. There probably won't be too much knitting progress in the near future. My wrist has been hurting, so I think I might need to go easy on the knitting for a few days.

Also, Angie asked if I had any suggestions for an easy first lace project. I know there are a lot of people out there who want to try lace for the first time. So here are my suggestions. If any of you more experienced lace knitters out there disagree with any of this or have any other suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment and let me know. There are probably as many opinions as there are knitters.

1. If you have never knit lace before, I would suggest NOT starting with a shawl that uses lace weight yarn. It's easier to get used to sorting out all the yarn overs with thicker yarn. Something around fingering weight to sport weight makes a nice shawl.

2. Make sure that the lace pattern is only worked on right-side rows, with plain knit or purl rows for wrong side rows. You'll be able to see what you are doing more easily, and you'll also have a bit of a rest between lace rows.

3. It's easiest to knit lace patterns that have a short repeat (both stitches and rows). That way, you will probably have them memorized before long and you'll be able to knit without the chart.

4. Speaking of charts, it is much easier to knit lace from a chart than from written out directions. If you aren't comfortable reading charts, I definitely recommend learning how. It's not as hard as it looks!

5. As with all knitting projects, you should like the pattern you are making. It will be more fun to make, and you'll also be happier with the final product.

6. Don't be discouraged if at first your lace doesn't look like you think it should. Knitted lace is not particularly pretty while you are making it. It needs to be stretched out in order to show the pattern. After you've finished a full pattern repeat, use your fingers to stretch out a portion of your knitting. You should see something that resembles the pattern.

So, what patterns fit this description? The good news is, a lot of them! Start looking around and see what you like. Or, design your own. A rectangular shawl is just a rectangle of lace (cast on a multiple of the stitch pattern and knit for a while) with a border around it. The border can be as simple as garter stitch that is knit on as you go (knit a few rows of garter stitch to start, keep the first and last few stitches of each row in garter stitch, and knit the last few rows in garter stitch) or a more complicated lace border that is knit on afterwards.

The great thing about knitting lace is that it isn't nearly as hard as it looks. The same principles apply to lace knitting as to any other kind of knitting. If you can knit, purl, and work yarn overs and decreases, you can knit lace. Have fun!

When the men are away...

2005-08-24T13:06:00.000-04:00

...the secretive knitter will block!

I ended up being able to block my wedding shawl sooner than I had thought. While I did have some offers of other people's houses I could use to block it, I thought it would be easier to do it at home. I had a chance this morning, and I took it. My soon-to-be husband left for work a little early this morning. I locked the door behind him and immediately started blocking. This shawl turned out to be BIG. It is about 110 inches long (that's 9 feet!) and 18 inches wide. I want the edges of this one to be a bit scalloped, so I used many, many pins instead of wires. After about an hour of washing and pinning, I set up a fan near it and left for work. Now I just need to get home early to take it down. I hope it's dry!

Here are a few photos of it all pinned out.

The center panel

about 1/3 of the length

One end

A closeup of a short side

Thanks for all your comments about the join. I'm glad you didn't notice it much. Once I had washed the shawl and pinned it out, I didn't notice it much either. Blocking solves all sorts of problems!

I couldn't wait

2005-08-23T10:40:00.000-04:00

I looked at this shawl with its 5 leaves of border left to go, and I couldn't let it sit unfinished. So I knit all 5 of those leaves. When I got to the end, I remembered a little mistake I had made at the beginning that I didn't go back and correct. Instead of doing a provisional cast-on so that I could just graft the end of the border to the beginning, I did a regular cast on.

This means that the grafting was a bit harder than it should have been. And it didn't come out as well as I would have liked it to. I'm sure you can tell which leaf has the join.

But hopefully when I'm wearing the shawl, and people are looking at it from more of a distance, it won't be too obvious.

I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to block the border. If I leave it pinned out in the living room, it won't be a secret project any more. It might have to wait until the night before the wedding.

So Close I Can Taste It

2005-08-22T11:28:00.000-04:00

Both shawls I have been working on are almost done!

See that tiny little gap in the border of my wedding shawl? Just 5 more leaves, and that gap will be gone! I've discovered that it is this shawl that has been hurting my wrist. While I love the yarn I am using (Unspun Icelandic from Schoolhouse Press), it doesn't have a lot of stretch so it is hard on the hands. I can only do about 2 leaves per day without my wrist hurting. So maybe in about 3 more days I'll have this one done.

I also made great progress on the second bridesmaid's shawl this weekend. I'm ready to turn the last corner. Then it's just 10 more leaf repeats and I'll have another one done! This shawl hasn't been blocked at all, so just imagine it looking like this (August 15th).

Hopefully my second bag of this yarn will come in soon so I can start figuring out how to make this pattern into a triangular shawl.

A Magical Pumpkin

2005-08-20T15:35:00.000-04:00

I couldn't take the shawl knitting any more, so I decided to start a small, fun, easy project. I made a magical basket (from The Second Treasury of Magical Knitting by Cat Bordhi) out of Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in Pumpkin. I followed the pattern exactly, except that I didn't check my gauge, and used a size 10 needle instead of the recommended size 11. It took less than one 50g skein of yarn. This project was easy, but interesting to make. And it went really, really fast. I started last night, and finished it this morning. Here it is:

And here it is felted:

Would I make more of these? Absolutely. I loved working with the knitpicks yarn- I think it is perfect for felting. I think it might pill a lot in a sweater, but for a basket it is fine. And the pattern was quick and fun.

More on the shawls next week.

Progress...

2005-08-18T19:54:00.000-04:00

I've been making progress on my shawls, but I don't have anything that is very photo-worthy. Here is a summary of what I have done, and what is left to do:

1. The center panel of my shawl is done. I only have 15 more leaves to do on the border. It doesn't look much different than it did here (scroll down to July 28). In less than three hours of knitting time (but it has to be secret knitting time) this one should be done.

2. I have one of the bridesmaids' shawls completely done and blocked. The center panel of the second one is done, and I have passed the half-way point on the border. All that's left is 37 more leaf repeats, and a corner. If I can keep up last night's pace, it should be done in about a week.

3. I have yet to start a shawl for my junior bridesmaid. I think I am going to run low on time for this one. I had to order more yarn, which won't be here for about another week and a half. That means I'll have about one and a half months to knit the whole thing. I think I am going to try to adapt the pattern for a triangular shawl, starting at the bottom point and working the border on as I go. I tried to chart this out on graph paper tonight, but I think it will be easier to figure out with yarn and needles in my hands. This way I can knit it as big as I can given the time, and then quickly put a border along the top in the last minute. I think this plan might work. But only if I knit fast!

There is one problem. My wrist is starting to get sore from all this lace knitting. Attaching the border to the center panel requires a lot of wrist strength. Hopefully it holds out a little longer!

A New Home!

2005-08-16T15:53:00.000-04:00

I've decided to move my blog. The lack of a comments option on my Verizon blog was bothering me (and some of my readers). Kathy suggested that I try blogger. Hopefully this works better!